


all that we could do with this emotion

by loveleee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Making Out, missing moment, that's it basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 11:31:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: “Stay with me.”He looks down at her, a slight grin on his face, like he thinks she’s joking. “Right. Like your mom doesn’t have a sniper rifle aimed at my forehead at this very moment.”“I’m serious,” Betty says softly. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, her mouth just barely touching the place that she knows will drive him crazy. A shiver ripples through him, and she smiles. “I want you to stay.”(Betty & Jughead, after the diner scene in 1x10.)





	all that we could do with this emotion

Jughead holds Betty’s hand all the way home.

 

 

 

 

 

The house is dark when they come to a stop outside on the sidewalk. After all, it’s 2 a.m., and Alice Cooper would never give the neighbors reason to wonder what the ever-respectable Coopers were doing up in the middle of the night. But whether she’s actually asleep or not is an entirely different matter.

Next door, there’s a light on. Archie’s room.

Betty sighs, leaning into Jughead’s side. His beanie is back in place, firmly centered over his head. “I don’t want to go up there,” she murmurs.

“Neither do I,” he says, his eyes on the Andrews house.

“So don’t,” she says, abruptly coming to a decision. “Stay with me.”

He looks down at her, a slight grin on his face, like he thinks she’s joking. “Right. Like your mom doesn’t have a sniper rifle aimed at my forehead at this very moment.”

“I’m serious,” Betty says softly. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, her mouth just barely touching the place that she knows will drive him crazy. A shiver ripples through him, and she smiles. “I want you to stay.”

“You’re gonna get me killed, Betty Cooper,” Jughead says, but his arms wrap around her, saying something else.

 

 

 

 

 

Betty toes her shoes off by the front door, and slips her keys back into her purse instead of hanging them on the hook by the door like usual. She pauses. Silence. She’s pretty sure her parents are in bed – even her mother isn’t creepy enough to sit up all night, alone, in a dark house.

She tiptoes lightly up the stairs, skipping the fifth step – it always creaks – and makes it into her bedroom uninterrupted. She pulls out her phone.

_I think they’re asleep but wait 5 mins._

Jughead texts back almost immediately. _I’m having 2nd thoughts. Could go for another burger right now._

Betty snorts. _Fine._ She pauses. _Guess you won’t see the surprise i have for u._

The little typing icon shows up immediately, then disappears. Betty bites her lip, staring down at the screen, a fluttering in her stomach.

Finally, he replies: _That’s a plot twist._

Betty moves closer to the window, peering out in search of Jughead, but it’s too dark to see him. Her phone buzzes again. _Is it safe?_

Normally she’d give it a few more minutes – her mother had a fondness for the surprise entrance – but tonight she’s already been dragged to the brink of a breakup, had her worst secrets spilled to at least half the sophomore class (and a good chunk of the juniors), and showed the open scars on her palm to another person for the first time in her entire life. It kind of feels impossible for another thing to go wrong right now.

_Come up._

 

 

 

 

 

This time when he climbs up to her window, she takes his hand and helps him through.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi,” he whispers back. He looks so handsome, she thinks, the dim light offered by her bedside lamp highlighting his features, casting his cheekbones into sharp relief. How she’d never noticed it until a few months ago – that Jughead was _handsome_ – was a mystery to her now.

“So what’s my surprise?” he says, a gravelly quality to his voice.

Betty loves how his voice changes when he speaks to her sometimes now, in registers she’s never heard before, like a secret code for her to crack. She casts about for something – anything – but in the end she goes with the truth (with Jughead, she always goes with the truth): “I made it up.”

He laughs and she shushes him, pressing a finger against his lips. “I knew it. Should have gone for the burgers.”

She shrugs and pulls away, smiling. “Do you want to sit?” she asks, sitting on the edge of her bed.

He sits beside her, their knees bumping together, and brushes a strand of hair away from her face. “You’re so pretty, Betts,” he says quietly, suddenly serious.

She opens her mouth to reply when something moves out of the corner of her eye. No – not moves. A light switching off. The light in Archie’s room, across the yard.

Jughead follows her gaze, and the shift in his mood is palpable.

Betty cups his face in her hand, pulling him back towards her. “Hey.”

“Mm?”

She tilts her head, trying to force him to meet her eyes. “What you said earlier. That I was just –”

“Slumming it?” he cuts in. “That was shitty. I shouldn’t have said it, and I know that’s not what you think. I’m sorry.”

“But you know that I’m over – _him_ , right?” she says, her other hand coming to rest lightly on his neck.

Jughead looks away, shrugs a little. “Yeah.”

“Jughead, look at me,” Betty insists. “I don’t want Archie. I want you.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, his gaze dropping from her eyes to her mouth and back again. “Okay,” he says.

She shifts closer, moving almost into his lap, and kisses him.

He kisses back immediately, his hands warm and steady as he holds her around the waist. Betty leans into him, her hands slipping up into his hair. She tugs at his hat gently, breaking the kiss.

“Can I take it off?” she asks, a sly edge to her voice, her mouth barely a breath away from his.

She can feel more than see his smile. “Yes.”

She kisses him again, deeper this time, and pushes the hat off of his head, running her fingers through his hair. Jughead’s fingers slide under her sweater, cool against her bare skin, and she gasps lightly as they trace up over the bottom of her ribcage, sweeping across her lower back.

Jughead swallows, pulling back to meet her eyes. He’s not smiling anymore. “Can I take it off?” he says.

Betty bites her lower lip. She nods. “Yes.”

 

 

 

 

 

It feels odd, sitting up like this while she has her shirt off, so Betty lays down on the bed, pushing the yellow crown sweater onto the floor.

Jughead stretches out next to her, resting a tentative hand just above her belly button. “This okay?”

“I didn’t take my top off just so you could stare at me, Jug,” she teases.

He doesn’t have to be told twice. He kisses her mouth, her jaw, her neck, his hand skimming over her all the while. He cups her breast and she can’t stop the little groan that escapes her.

Betty slides her own hands up under his shirt, her fingers running over his back, down his spine. Jughead sits up and tugs it over his head, and then his skin is touching her skin, warm and smooth and almost overwhelming in how _good_ it is.

They rearrange themselves wordlessly, instinctively, Jughead moving on top of her, Betty opening her legs to fit him in between them. He rests on his knees, keeping his weight off of her, and nips lightly at her neck.

She understands what he’s trying to do – hold back, don’t push, don’t pressure – and later, tomorrow, she’ll appreciate it. But right now, it’s more frustrating than anything else. “You can…” she trails off, and tugs down on his belt loops, pulling his hips flush against her own.

The rush of desire hits her all at once, like a wave. “Fuck, Betty,” he says through gritted teeth, and even the simple words send her reeling.

“Please,” she whispers against his neck, pushing her hips up into him. He moves back against her in rhythm, and some deep, barely-conscious part of her mind recognizes that these are the motions, if not the act, of sex. It’s thrilling and scary and embarrassing and wonderful, a million more things than she can articulate right now, and all that matters is that he keeps moving, keeps touching her like this.

So a few minutes later, when he stops – she can’t hold back the pleading in her voice. “What are you doing?”

Jughead pushes himself up onto his elbows, shaking his head slightly. “We have to stop.”

“Why?”

Even in the dark, she can tell he’s blushing. “We just – I don’t want to make a, y’know.” He gestures vaguely around the front of his pants. “Mess.”

It takes her longer than it should to get it. “ _Oh_.”

He lets out a long, slow breath. “Yeah.”

She wants to know more – wants to do more – but he’s clearly uncomfortable, and her parents are home. And she’s not sure she actually wants to get more naked than this with the threat of her mother walking in a slim-but-real possibility.

So Betty reminds him where the bathroom is, and changes into her pajamas while he creeps down the hallway, quiet as though his life depends on it. (And to be fair – maybe it does.)

 

 

 

 

 

Betty’s already curled up under the covers by the time he slips back into her bedroom, looking sheepish. He takes off his jeans and crawls into bed beside her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She rolls towards him and kisses his mouth, sliding her tongue against his, feeling it all the way down to her toes.

“Stop,” he laughs, resting a gentle hand on her neck. “I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again.”

“Gross,” she says, and then they’re both giggling, their feet tangling together by the bottom of the sheets.

“I…” Jughead breathes like he’s about to say more, but stops himself. He clears his throat. “This ended up being a good birthday.”

“Why, because you almost got laid?” She runs a foot up his calf teasingly.

“Doesn’t hurt,” he says, and laughs when she kicks him lightly. “No, I mean – you trusted me. With something important. That matters more than some stupid party, or movies, or whatever.”

Jughead clasps her hand and brings it up to his lips, kissing her palm. “You matter more to me, Betts. The most.”

“Juggie,” she whispers, feeling everything, feeling so much it might burst out of her. She’s in love with him. She loves him, and she can feel the words warm in her chest, lying in wait for the right moment. But she isn’t sure this is it. “Me too.”

 

 

 

 

 

She sets the alarm on her phone to buzz them awake at 6 a.m. Betty sits by the window and watches Jughead climb back down the ladder, before she blows him a kiss goodbye and curls back up in bed, awaiting her mother’s interrogation, sure to come with the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> I love wondering about missing moments. And based on the fact that Jughead never walked in on Archie and Veronica after his birthday party, seems like he spent the night somewhere else. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I greatly appreciate any thoughts! :)


End file.
